


and together we fall

by alienbabe (molotovgirl)



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ghost Sex, Tragic Romance, honestly there's ghost sex here...turn back now if this disturbs u!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 13:05:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9125029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/molotovgirl/pseuds/alienbabe
Summary: After Cassian is rescued from Skarif, leaving Jyn to die alone, he is haunted not only by grief and guilt but also by a very familiar ghost.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is the product of my emotional outpouring following Rogue One's tragic ending & Carrie Fisher's untimely death (RIP to a very sweet and powerful lady). Enjoy some more tragic romance and passionate ghost encounters. Cheers!

_ We were meant to die together _ . The words repeat themselves like a mantra, the only thing that Cassian can think as the Rebel Alliance ship pulls away from the imploding planet. The ship is loud with the cries of the wounded and dying. A terrible light floods the cargo hold, and Cassian knows that it is Skarif being pulled into obsoletion. He is blinded with pain from the wound in his side. The light vanishes, throwing the hold into temporary dimness. Someone says loudly that the planet is gone, evaporated by the Death Star. Cassian leans over and vomits profusely, then lets himself fade into unconsciousness. 

 

 

He spends several days being pulled back from the brink of death on Yavin IV. Cassian wakes several times, with Jyn’s name caught in a desperate scream, and he thrashes until the medical droids put him back to sleep. When he comes around, he is alone in a cold white room and he still feels the panicked urge to close his eyes against that terrible white light. The medical personnel let him convalesce quietly until he excuses himself from their care against their insistence that he needs more time to heal. The rebel base hums with activity––Luke Skywalker is going to lead a team to take down the Death Star. The sunlight reminds him of the bright tropical harshness of Skarif, and Cassian seeks refuge in his subterranean sleeping quarters. He tries to keep Jyn off his mind and finds that he cannot. 

 

 

She comes to him for the first time in a dream. In the dream he is standing alone in a field of tall grass. In the distance, enormous black mountains hunch beneath a grey sky. Jyn appears like a mist. She is beautiful and untouchable, glowing with blue light. Cassian falls to his knees. 

_“_ Jyn Erso, he says her name like a plea. “Forgive me.” 

She comes towards him like a vision. “Get off your knees. Don’t be a fool, Cassian. My death was at the hands of the Empire, not you.”

He rises awkwardly until he is hovering above her. 

“I was ready to give my life for the Rebellion. But I never could have asked that of you, Jyn.” 

The corner of her mouth twists upwards in a smirk. “The Rebellion offered me a second chance. You offered me a home. For that, I would have gladly given my life.”

Cassian feels as if he is choking. Jyn’s form begins to flicker eerily. 

“Forgive me,” Cassian pleads again. 

“Cassian,” says Jyn, stepping forwards. “I––” 

Cassian awakes drenched in an icy sweat, her name still tangled in the back of his dry throat. 

 

 

Around him, the rebellion continues. Luke Skywalker leads the successful annihilation of the Death Star, and the Rebel Alliance cheers the destruction of the planet-killer. Ecstatic crowds greet the brave X-wing pilots upon their return to Yavin IV but Cassian goes to his bunk and sits there in silence. The weapon that killed Jyn and Chirrut and Baze and countless others––gone. His eyes sting with tears. He should have been there, helping to destroy it. He feels like a coward. 

“You, Cassian Andor, are no coward.” Her voice is quiet, and Cassian’s heart skips a beat. She is standing across from his bunk, glowing with that eerie blue light. 

“Jyn,” he murmurs. Is she real? “Have you come back through the Force? _ ”  _

Jyn moves closer to him, her steps delicate. “My mother always told me that those we care about would live on in the Force. So here I am, coming back to you.”

She spreads her arms and smiles softly. Cassian reaches as if to touch her, but pulls his hand back. He is afraid his fingers will spear through her. 

“We should have died together, he says. I meant to die on Skarif. It was not right for you to have gone alone.” 

She moves closer, until they are almost touching, and then kneels before him to look into his eyes. She is beautiful, so cold and beautiful and distant, and his throat tightens. He longs, again to reach for her.

“The Death Star has been destroyed,” he offers. The words nearly die on his tongue. 

Jyn’s mouth curves into a wry smile. “Then I did not die for nothing, did I?” 

God, she is beautiful, glowing with that pure blue light. Almost holy. He closes his eyes, willing away burning tears, and when he opens them she is gone. 

 

 

Cassian tries not to think of her as the Empire crumbles around them. He dreams nightly of the collapsing planet, of Bodhi scooping him from the tower but leaving Jyn. He dreams of hands reaching towards him, and wakes with her name on his tongue. He seeks out Bodhi, asks the pilot if he ever dreams of the ones they’ve left behind. 

“I try not to think about it, says Bodhi, and he hangs his head in shame. “It’s too painful, my friend.” 

He is right, Cassian knows. He has given everything for this rebellion––his family, countless friends and companions..all of them, gone. Necessary sacrifices, he has always thought. This guilt, this agony, it threatens to consume him. He begs the Senate for more intelligence operations, any assignment that might take him somewhere else. They send him to some distant desert planet on what he is certain is a dead-end mission, a simple distraction. He is grateful for it. It feels wrong without K2SO, however, and he still wakes up with Jyn’s image seared onto his eyelids. 

 

 

She begins to come to him more frequently, and one night Cassian jerks awake to find her seated on the end of his bunk. 

“Cassian,” she murmurs, “you must stop blaming yourself for this”.

He rubs sleep from his eyes, blearily assessing the fact that Jyn’s Force ghost has found her way for the second time into his quarters. 

“Is that why you keep coming back? To forgive me?”

She crawls forwards until they are nearly touching. He is painfully aware of every curve and dip in her body beneath her clothing. 

“ I come back for you,” she whispers, and she’s even closer now and Cassian swears that every nerve in his body is on fire. She leans forward and slots their lips together, and she  _ feels  _ as real as anything. She straddles him, pressing their bodies together, and he slides his arms around her and pulls her closer. They shed their clothing piece by piece, stopping to kiss desperately with each garment they discard. And then it is nothing but skin against skin and Cassian puts his fingers inside of her and she moves against him and moans. He aches for her, and when he slides inside of her she cries out and throws her head forehead so that her hair falls over his face, a soft brown curtain. He inhales the smell of rust and sweat, trying to memorize the feel of her body underneath his hands, every noise and movement she makes. She is radiating that ethereal light, so distinctly inhuman that it should disturb him but he cannot think of anything but her––her skin against his, the shape of her body. She cries out softly when she comes, moaning his name, and he thinks that he has never felt or heard anything so perfect. Afterwards, she curls against him, the bunk awash in blue light. 

“Did you love me, Cassian Andor?” She asks, voice hoarse with exhaustion. Cassian pulls her closer, naked and sweating and beautiful, and whispers,

“Yes,  _ mi amor _ , yes, yes.” 

He is afraid to fall asleep, because he knows that when he wakes she will be gone. He is right. In the morning there is only a cold, empty bed, and a feeling in his chest like stardust.

 

 

He knows it’s over when his U-wing is captured by a squadron of Stormtroopers on a mission to an Imperial-held moon in the outer Gordian Reach. The false documents he has don’t scan, because they’ve been cheaply and hastily manufactured by some low-level intelligence officer at the rebel base. When they force him to his knees and open the cargo hold to reveal an impressive cache of weapons, he closes his eyes. He opens them to see Jyn standing before him, though the Stormtroopers don’t seem to notice her presence. She extends a hand to him. 

“Don’t be afraid,” she says. “Just follow me.” 

He never feels the blaster shot to the back of his head––perhaps a split-second of blinding pain, and then nothing. A collapse. He rises, what’s left behind of him, and takes her hand to follow her into the Light. 


End file.
